Highlights
- Second half of First Grade starts at ROA
- Family bowling night
Calan
2017 started as most years do… Those first few days are bitter sweet as we welcome in a fresh, new year, but say an official goodbye to the holiday season. Gran and Grandpa also head back home after their holiday stay, which is becoming more difficult as the kids get older. They miss them even before they drive away, but they know they’ll see them again next time! College football also winds down, and this year especially, Calan was excited to watch some of the big bowl games. He’s becoming a bonafide fan, always making sure to root for a team in each game with intense spirit.
Another area Calan showed increase intensity was his piano “tinkering”. Lately, Calan has really blossomed on identifying notes on each staff and applying this to his Minuet One song he’s learning. He’s using both hands now as he slowly masters more measures of the song…mostly teaching himself with a few tips from Mama.
As with every end of January, we get to celebrate Dada’s birthday. This year we decided to take the boys bowling for the first time. Eager for our trip. we “practiced” a bit at home with our plastic set. Calan and Evan definitely enjoyed the real bowling alley, but they learned quickly that the real deal is a little more difficult than the toy set at home. Fortunately, we had rails on the gutters for a much needed handicap. Calan was able to get the ball down the lane successfully and knock down pins consistently. Evan was excited to take his turn each time, and with some help, we got his ball down to the pins. His big hangup was wanting to try everyone else’s balls, despite his 6lb kid one being too heavy already. We wrapped up the outing after an hour, with a visit to the arcade there. It was Calan’s first time at an arcade, and he was definitely pumped up to try the video games that looked the most fun. For him, race car driving and air hockey against Dada were his favorites. Dada even taught Calan, that if you just look around carefully enough, you can spot some loose quarters. Calan loved the thrill of finding a few forgotten quarters, and of course getting to spend it on some extra play time.
One developmental trait we’ve noticed with Calan lately is how easily he seems to intellectually understand a physical technique or skill within a sport. Then, how how he’s able to execute a learned skill better than most kids his age after just learning how to do it. We’ve seen this in both football and basketball. He may not be the best natural athlete but he’s not bad either, and when he listens to instruction and has good, encouraging coaches (like we first observed with swimming), he shows that he can get it going faster than anyone expects. We frequently run into other parents who have noticed this and comment to us about it…usually saying how athletic he is. 😉
Notable quotes this month:
Dada being silly talking with Calan about something take a while to do: “That’ll take a long time, that will take until the year 2074, when I’m 100 years old.”
Calan being silly back: “Yeah you’ll probably be dead about that time.”
Looking around the house seeing loose boys socks in various places, Calan says, “Look, there are socks everywhere. There are warm feet everywhere. If you need warm feet, you can put on some socks.”
Calan: “This morning my privates woke me up at 6:59”
Dada: “Oh, ok…what did you do?”
Calan: “Well I had to get up and go potty.”
“I know the drill” – Stated after we told Calan we were impressed with how he was teaching Evan to say a hard word for him, “computer”.
After seeing a lot of worms out during this extra rainy season, Calan said that the worms come out in the rain because birds don’t like to come out in the rain. He said the worms don’t usually come out because birds eat worms. We asked how he noticed this, and he said it was just an observation because he didn’t see any birds in the rain but saw lots of worms.
During his haircut this month, Calan was sure to show Miss Tory his muscles several times and of course tell his favorite Evan joke (What’s Evan’s favorite clef? The ‘trouble” clef)
“In the dark, you see what you’re doing, by turning on the light.”
Evan
One thing we’ve noticed more and more with Evan is how when he is alone with one of us and Calan is away at workshops or violin practice, he is much more even-keeled. In fact, we really see just how smart he can be. It’s as if he’s allowed to think through things, focus, ask questions, and talk more without the distraction of his fun brother around. Overall, his emotions seem more stable because there’s not the excitement and conflict that you normally get when playing with a sibling and sharing experiences (and toys!) together. These times are nice, and it’s fun to see him in this light. That said, you could never put a value on what he gets from having an older brother around. Dada can relate, and while personality is a factor, there’s probably some truth to this for all children who aren’t the first-born.
Getting over things quickly… One characteristic of Evan that we see when it comes to emotions and handling them, is that he is able to get over tantrums relatively quickly. One example was during music night with Joe and Patty on New Years Day, Evan was getting upset because he wanted to keep playing with both Patty’s phone and Calan’s camera. During his tantrum, Dada held him close and said to go up to his room and get something of his, a toy or book that belongs to him to play with instead. He went up right away, and 10 minutes later after not returning, we found him sitting in his chair all alone thumbing through books quietly and peacefully.
It’s fun to see how Evan picks up on the little things people say and even humor. For example, when saying the wrong lyrics to a song one time for fun he caught on and made up his own words. For example, his Daniel Tiger, “Grown Ups Come Back” song. Calan and Dada were replacing the word ‘back’ with other words. A couple days later Evan started singing, “grown ups come book, chair, etc. After each one, he would burst into laughter. Interesting that a two-year old could pick up on this and create his own version of the silliness.
Notable quotes this month:
Listening to the Holberg suite, during slow and quiet passages Evan said, “the music is sad”. Then later when the music turned a little more bright and up-tempo he said, “the music is happy!”
Another time, Mama put on the Civil War station on Pandora radio. It was playing chill Appalachian blue grass violinish stuff. She went to the bathroom, and when she came out Evan was looking really sad…as a sad track played. He was sad simply because the music had changed.
“I’m sad. I miss my friend. I miss my friend, Mama”
Using his doctor’s kit from Christmas. Evan checked Mama and Dada with the stethoscope. We said, ‘thank you, Dr. E’ . Then he went and put it away, and when he came back to us he announced to Mama, “I’m not really a doctor”